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DOCUMENT: LOGANG.TXT
AN ANALYSIS OF THE BANGLADESH GOVERNMENT REPORT ON THE
LOGANG MASSACRE OF 10 APRIL, 1992
by Mr. Ramendu Shekhar Dewan
21 March 1993
SUMMARY
As part of its systematic ethnic-cleansing campaign in
the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), the Bangladesh Government
(Government) massacred the Jumma people (the people of the
CHT) in many areas and then denied having committed those
massacres after meticulously concealing all the evidence.
The Logang massacre is no exception.
Fortunately, the Government could not keep the matter
secret this time as a western human rights activist besides
twentytwo prominent Bengalis were visiting the area to
participate in a Jumma festival at the time of the incident.
The international community was shocked by this horrible
mass-killing and compelled the Government to set up an
inquiry into the incident.
Despite concerted international interventions, the
Government is still indulging in the massive cover-up of the
massacre. It appointed its hench-man, Justice (retd) Sultan
Hossain Khan (Justice Khan) to investigate the incident Just
to spread a smoke-screen for the international community.
Justice Khan submitted his report in Bengali on 20
Aug., 1992, to the Bangladesh Home Minister. The Government
in turn issued a 20-page English version of the report
having no signature of Justice Khan on Oct. 8, 1992. Later
it also issued a 25-page report in English with the
signature of Justice Khan on. The original report in Bengali
has not yet been released despite repeated requests by both
the Bengalis and the Jummas. This brief analysis has been
made on the 25-page English version of the report.
The report is surprisingly brief and vague. However,
it appears to be an elaboration of a statement issued by the
CHT military authorities on the Logang massacre on 11 April,
1992. It also resembles the military analysis of the CHT
crisis as published in a paper by the military authorities
in response to an independent inquiry report published by
the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission in 1991.
It is, perhaps, fair to say that Justice Khan had stage-
managed the whole enquiry episode in collusion with the
military authorities. Together they suppressed all vital
information, distorted facts, fabricated evidence and
manipulated the entire investigation process in order to
prop up the untenable military version of the Logang
massacre. Even Justice Khan himself did not enquire enough
to find out the cause of the massacre, the extent of the
massacre and those responsible for the massacre. He by-
passed the right witnesses, interviewed only those witnesses
who were selected and thoroughly briefed by the military
authorities, did not pay heed to the right advice and did
not follow up the right leads.
Justice Khan, for example, could easily find out the
exact number of casualties of the massacre by checking the
ration card list, voters list and the list of the Jumma
refugees who had to flee to the Tripura State of India. He
did not follow up these sure leads even after being advised
by a western human rights activist. Justice Khan could also
ascertain the number of deaths by consulting important eye-
witnesses such as Mr. Samiran Dewan, the Chairman of the
Khagrachari District, the inhabitants of the Logang cluster
village and the Jumma refugees in Tripura in privacy without
the presence of any Bangladeshis. The Jumma witnesses did
not dare speak out the truth in the presence of the
Bangladeshis for fear of military reprisals. He did not
follow this necessary procedure to collect the true evidence
and facts.
The report claimed that the killing of one Kabir
Hossain by the Shanti Bahini (SB) had caused the Logang
massacre. According to it, the SB had injured five
Bangladeshis with a 'dao', broad curved knife. One of the
victims, Kabir Hossain died later due to a throat injury and
the other four injured victims were sent to the Khagrachari
hospital for treatment. The Bangladeshi witnesses said that
the SB were well-equipped with firearms. Yet Justice Khan
did not interview the injured victims to enquire about the
SB attack on them and also to ascertain the nature of their
injuries whether caused by bullets or knives. The Commission
for Justice and Peace, a Bangladeshi human rights group,
went to the hospital to interview the victims and learnt
that there were only two victims instead of four. Needless
to say the military authorities prevented the Commission
from interviewing the injured victims. Two Jumma witnesses
said that Kabir Hossain was punished for attempting to rape
Jumma women by the local Jumma people. But Justice Khan did
not investigate the matter whether Kabir Hossain was really
injured by the SB or not.
Clearly, Justice Khan's finding was not only inadequate
and inconclusive but also fabricated and suppressive. It was
obviously intended to - 1) conceal the Logang massacre to
the maximum extent, - 2) hide the Government policy to
exterminate the Jumma people, - 3) exonerate the military
commanders from the blame of committing the massacre, and -
4) blame the SB for causing the massacre.
Justice Khan's conclusions were bound to be erroneous
&s well because all the evidence he collected were either
false or concocted. He could not corroborate the injuring of
Kabir Hossain and his four companions by the SB with a
curved knife nor could he substantiate the involvement of
the SB in the Logang massacre in any way with facts and
figures. On the one hand, none of the witnesses saw the SB
attack on the five Bangladeshis. On the other hand, the
Bangladeshi witnesses said that the SB were well-armed.
Certainly the SB would have used their fire-arms had they
really attacked the said Bangladeshis. Justice Khan did not
interview the four injured victims possibly because their
injuries were not caused by the SB at all. For the same
reason, the military authorities also did not allow the
Commission for Justice and Peace (CJP) to visit the victims
in the hospital. The evidence about the number of injured
victims were conflicting indeed. Some Bangladeshi witnesses
said - two - and some Bangladeshi witnesses said - four -
excluding the deceased Kabir Hossain. So was the evidence
about the name of the deceased. Many military witnesses said
- it was Kabir Ahmed - and many Bangladeshi witnesses said -
it was Kabir Hossain. All the evidence seemed to be false
and the whole incident appeared to be completely fabricated.
Doubtless, Justice Khan had suppressed the actual fact that
Kabir Hossain and his accomplices were injured when they
went to rape Jumma women under the instruction of the
military authorities and not by the SB.
Justice Khan recognised the Logang massacre and
admitted that 550 Jumma houses were burnt down. Yet, in
complete contradiction, he concluded that only twelve Jummas
were killed, another thirteen were injured and another two
were missing. Assuming that at least two Jummas were burnt
alive in every house-hold, then the number of dead should be
at least 1,100 because most of the old people, women and
children could not flee their village. Justice Khan could
easily establish the casualty figure by checking the ration
card register, the voters register and the list of Jumma
refugees in Tripura. The CJP also pointed out those
important sources of information to him. Still he did not
check those valuable lines of inquiry. Perhaps, it is worth
noting that the military authorities refused to show the
ration card list and the voters list to the CJP and also to
Mr. Kalpa Ranjan Chakma, MP for the Khagrachari District.
Justice Khan also did not try to collect the facts by asking
the Jumma people privately. The Jumma people would not
disclose anything about the military atrocities in the
presence of any Bangladeshis for fear of military reprisals.
Justice Khan also ignored one Jumma eye-witness who very
boldly said that he saw one hundred and fifty bodies being
carried away by the military personnel and the Bangladeshi
infiltrators. He only relied on the evidence of the local
military, police, administrative and medical officers who
were nothing but the part of the Government setup for hiding
the massacre. Having failed to cover up the massacre,
Justice Khan had gone as far as to say that the number of
casualties could not be as high as twelve hundred on the
ground that the military authorities would not be able to
remove secretly so many dead bodies. His argument is not
only ridiculous but also childish as the military forces
have already murdered tens of thousands of Jummas and very
easily disposed of the dead bodies in complete secrecy.
Therefore, Justice Khan's views on the number of casualties
are totally false, calculated to suppress true information
and tendentious to cover up the Logang massacre.
Justice Khan blamed the SB for causing the Logang
massacre by supposing that the SB had killed Kabir Hossain
whose death had provoked the military personnel and the
Bangladeshi settlers to attack the Logang cluster village.
His supposition has no legs to stand on because he could not
prove that the SB was responsible for the death of the
deceased in any manner. Justice Khan clearly entangled the
SB in the death of Kabir Hossain in order to suppress the
fact that the deceased and his accomplices were actually
injured while attempting to rape Jumma women. So his
conclusion that the SB had caused the massacre is ill-
founded, indefensible and misleading.
Justice Khan himself has noted that there is tension
between the Jumma people and the Bangladeshi infiltrators.
No body denies that the tension is due to the illegal and
forcible occupation of Jumma villages and agricultural lands
by the Bangladeshi settlers. The primary task of the
military forces is to depopulate the Jumma villages by
employing all kinds of ethnic-cleansing tactics and then to
resettle the depopulated areas with their co-religionists
from the plains of Bangladesh. The Logang massacre was
carried out to seize the area for the illegal Bangladeshi
settlers. Yet Justice Khan tried to involve the SB in the
Logang incident Just to disguise the Government's sinister
motive what the military leaders frankly and openly declared
- "We want only the Land and not the People of the CHT". He
also turned his blind eye to the local military officers and
so he could not see the real culprits of the massacre. Every
body knows that the military personnel and the Bangladeshi
infiltrators do not attack the Jumma people without the
orders of the military commanders in the CHT and without the
instructions of the Government. Justice Khan could not see
the forest for the trees.
The news of the Logang massacre was leaked out through
the twenty-three visitors to the area. So it was futile for
Justice Khan to deny the entire massacre. Then he
dexterously handled the inquiry to absolve the military
commanders from the blame of premeditating the massacre at
Logang by placing the blame mildly on some low-ranking
military personnel and Bangladeshi settlers for attacking
the Logang cluster village out of revenge but overwhelmingly
on the SB for supposedly causing the incident.
Although Justice Khan had recognised the bitter
relationship between the Jumma people and the Bangladeshi
settlers, he was extremely biased and unjust indeed when he
recommended the further arming of the Bangladeshi
infiltrators as a measure of preventing future incidents
like that of Logang. In stead of reducing violence, his
recommendation will certainly increase violence manifold in
the CHT. In fact, he is very injudiciously encouraging the
Bangladeshi settlers to commit more massacres of the unarmed
Jummas.
Even further more, Justice Khan recommended the
immediate settlement of tens of thousands of Bangladeshi
infiltrators brought into the CHT under the Government-
financed Bangladeshization of the CHT scheme. The scheme
violates the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation of 1900 which
protects the political, economic, social, cultural and
religious rights of the Jumma people. It also violates the
existing Bangladeshi laws. Such a serious disregard for
human rights in the CHT and such a blatant disrespect for
Bangladeshi laws prove once again that Justice Khan is
extremely partial to his co-religionists and terribly
hostile to the people of the CHT.
Justice Khan made a remark that he had not come across
any extrajudicial executions committed by the Bangladesh
security forces in the CHT. His remark is contradictory to
his knowledge of the military-premeditated Logang massacre.
The world knows that the Bangladesh military forces have
killed thousands of Jumma men, women and children without
trial in any courts of law. Justice Khan's observation is
definitely a flagrant travesty of the truth. The independent
inquiry report of the international Chittagong Hill Tracts
Commission (CHTC) belies his comment.
Justice Khan's report is fundamentally flawed. His
impartiality and independence are questionable as he has
clearly sided with the military authorities. The truth of
his finding is also equally doubtful because he has
suppressed information, distorted facts and concocted
evidence. In a nut-shell, Justice Khan has helped the
military authorities cover up the Logang massacre.
Therefore, his report is not true, credible and worthy of
being called an enquiry report.
In view of Justice Khan's palpable attempt to conceal
the Logang massacre, the international community is
fervently requested to send an independent international
commission to Logang to investigate the said incident. The
Jumma people would fully cooperate with such a commission
and disclose all the truth to it without any fear.
INTRODUCTION
The Bangladesh Government (Government) has sealed off
the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and massacred the Jumma
people (the people of the CHT) in many areas with a view to
seizing their villages and agricultural lands for its co-
religionists from the plain districts of Bangladesh. It
concealed meticulously all those massacres by - secretly
disposing of the dead and injured, precisely destroying all
the evidence, stringently suppressing all the information
and intimidating the Jumma people with military reprisals if
they did not keep their mouths shut.
However, the ever-vigilant human rights groups
outmanoeuvred the Government and managed to bring to light
several massacres such as - Kaokhali (25 March, 1980),
Banraibari-Beltali-Belchari (26 June, 1981), Telafang-
Asalong-Gurangapara-Tabalchari-Barnala (19 Sept., 1981),
Golak Padimachara-Machyachara-Tarabanchari-Logang-Tarabanya-
Maramachyachara-Jedamachyachara (26 June, 11, 26 & 27 July,
9-11 August, 1983), Bhusanchara (May, 1984), Choto Harina-
Bara Harina-Chedoa-Garjantali-Suguripara-Maudong (30 June,
1984), Panchari-Khagrachari-Matiranga-Lakhshmichari (30
April - first week of May, 1986), Dighinala (13-16 June,
1986), Baghai Chari (9-10 August, 1988), Longadu (4 May,
1989), Malya (2 Feb., 1992), Logang (10 April, 1992) and so
on.
Under immense pressure from both the Bangladesh
Opposition MPs and the international community, the
Government had to set up inquiry into the massacres of
Kaokhali (25 March, 1980) and Longadu (4 May, 1989) but it
never made the inquiry reports public despite repeated
requests by the Jummas, the Bangladeshi Opposition MPs and
various human rights agencies.
On 10 April, 1992, the military forces in league with
the Bangladeshi settlers massacred the Jumma people of the
Logang cluster village and began to hide the massacre as
usual. Incidentally, a foreign human rights activist and
twentytwo eminent Bangladeshis came together to the area to
attend & Jumma festival at the time of the incident and
heard of it. They investigated the matter as far as possible
and immediately alerted the civilised world about the
massacre. Because of their presence in the area the
Government could not hide the incident fully.
Naturally, the international community was horrified by
the Logang massacre. It was also outraged by the repeated
failure of the Government to comply with the former's
directions to make public the inquiry reports on the
Kaokhali and the Longadu massacres. So the international
community decided not to let the Government get away with
another massacre this time. Then it asked the Government not
only to investigate the Logang massacre but also to make the
inquiry report public.
Having realised the firm determination of the
international community to know about the Logang massacre,
the Government set up an enquiry into the incident. But it
very tactfully appointed its henchman, Justice (retd) Sultan
Hossain Khan (Justice Khan), a zealous supporter of the
ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, "as the sole member-
Chairman of the (enquiry) Commission" Just to spread a
smoke-screen for the international community.
Justice Khan submitted his report in Bengali on 20
Aug., 1992, to the Bangladesh Home Minister, Mr. Abdul Matin
Chowdhury. On Oct. 7, 1992, the Government issued a press
release and it also published the following day a 20-page
English version of the report but having no signature of
Justice Khan. Much later, it also issued another 25-page
report in English with the signature of Justice Khan on.
However, the Government has refused to release the original
report in Bengali despite repeated requests by the Jummas
and the Bangladeshis as well. This brief analysis has been
made on the 25-page English version of the report entitled,
"Logang Disturbances Enquiry Commission - 1992",
"Khagrachari Hill District", "Report by Justice Sultan
Hossain Khan".
BACKGROUND
On 15 Feb., 1972, a Jumma delegation, led by Mr.
Manabendra Narayan Larma, met with the Bangladeshi leader,
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and demanded autonomy for the CHT as
a measure to protect the identity of the Jumma people from
the ethnic-cleansing atrocities of the Government. Mr.
Rahman rejected outright the Jumma delegation's genuine
demand and advised the delegation by saying - "Forget about
your identity, go home and become Bengalis". Brigadier
Hannan and Lt. Col. Salam declared in a public meeting at
Panchari on May 26, 1979, - "We want only the land and not
the People of the CHT". Mr. Ali Haider Khan, the then Deputy
Commissioner of the CHT, and Mr. Abdul Awal, the former
Commissioner of the Chittagong Division, threatened the
Jumma leaders on many occasions by saying that the Jumma
people would be extinct in the next five years. Their frank
and precise admissions clearly reveal the sinister motive of
the Government. As part of its ethnic-cleansing policy, the
Government sealed off the CHT, deployed about 180,000
security personnel in the region, and financed the
Bangladeshization of the CHT scheme. Under this scheme, the
military forces depopulate the Jumma villages and
agricultural lands by employing all kinds of ethnic-
cleansing tactics and then resettle the depopulated areas
with their co-religionists from the plain districts of
Bangladesh. They carried out the Logang massacre, as pert of
their primary task, to settle some thousand Bangladeshi
infiltrators in the area.
The CHT Regulation of 1900 was promulgated by the
British to protect the entity and political-economic-social-
cultural-religious rights of the Jumma people. It forbids
any outsiders to settle or buy land in the CHT. Under Rule
51, any non-Jumma can be arrested, punished and expelled
from the CHT if found doing anything prejudicial to the
interest of the Jummas. The Government has no right to deny
the Jumma people their traditional rights in their own
homeland. It is illegal to settle the Bangladeshis in the
CHT. The Government is also seriously violating the existing
Bangladeshi laws by killing the Jummas for seizing their
lands for the illegal Bangladeshi settlers.
LOGANG MASSACRE
The military forces forcibly relocated some fifteen
hundred Jumma families from the surrounding Jumma villages
at the Logang cluster village, which is nothing but a
concentration camp, and distributed their ancestral villages
and farmlands to the Bangladeshi infiltrators free of cost.
Then they hatched a plot to find an excuse to get rid of
those Jumma prisoners. On 10 April, 1992, the military
authorities sent two Bangladeshis, armed with local 'dao's,
broad curved knives, to rape some Jumma women who were
grazing their cattle at their Logang cluster village. The
Jumma women tried to defend themselves and at the same time
they cried for help. A Jumma gentleman came to their rescue
and asked the Bangladeshi rapists to leave the Jumma women
alone. Instead of going away, the rapists attacked the Jumma
gentleman and hacked him to death. During the attack, one of
the rapists was also injured. After killing the Jumma
gentleman, the rapists went straight to the camp of the
Bangla Desh Rifles (BDR). The military authorities found the
excuse they were looking for and used the injured rapist as
a victim of the Shanti Bahini (SB) attack. On the pretext of
searching out the SB, the military forces and the
Bangladeshi settlers combinedly attacked the Logang cluster
village immediately after the arrival of the two rapists at
the BDR camp. They hacked many Jummas to death and shot dead
those who tried to flee. Then the invaders forced the old
people, women and children into their homes and burnt them
alive by setting their homes on fire. According to the
survivors, eye-witnesses and the local authorities, some
eight hundred houses were burnt down and about twelve
hundred Jummas mostly old people, women and children were
killed in the massacre. Many of the survivors fled to the
Tripura State of India.
The military authorities attempted their utmost to
conceal the Logang massacre. They cordoned off the entire
Logang cluster village immediately after carrying out the
premeditated massacre. Brigadier Sharif Aziz, the Commander
of the Khagrachari cantonment, even prevented Mr. Samiran
Dewan, the Chairman of the Khagrachari District Council,
from visiting the site of massacre on the day of occurrence.
Incidentally, a group of twenty. three visitors including
human rights activists, parliamentarians, lawyers,
journalists, professors, the Deputy Attorney General of
Bangladesh, and a western human rights activist, M/s
Rosaline Costa, was in the vicinity of Logang at the time of
the incident to participate in a Jumma festival known as
'Bizu'. The military authorities also did not permit those
visitors to investigate the matter on the spot. However, the
visitors were able to collect enough information from the
Jumma survivors and eye-witnesses, the local authorities and
the military authorities as well.
According to the above-mentioned visitors' report, the
drivers of military trucks carried the dead and the injured
to a secret place and burned them together. One survivor,
Mr. Boishishta Muni Chakma came back to the Logang cluster
village on 11 April, 1992, to claim his wife's body and saw
thirtynine bodies lying around the site of his burnt house.
He was refused to remove his wife's body for cremation. Mr.
Samiran Dewan, the Chairman of the Khagrachari Hill District
Council, managed to visit a small part of the Logang village
on 11 April, 1992, and counted one hundred and thirtyeight
bodies. Then he was prevented to inspect the rest of the
village. Brig. Sharif Aziz admitted that the number of the
dead seen by Mr. Samiran Dewan was correct. Another survivor
and eye-witness, Mr. Chandra Sagor Chakma witnessed children
being thrown into the fire. He also saw one hundred and
fifty bodies being carried away by the military personnel
and the Bangladeshi settlers. At that time Mr. Chandra Sagor
Chakma was hiding in a Tripura house of the Logang cluster
village. A local Bangladeshi doctor visited the spot to help
the injured and counted three hundred dead bodies and then
he could not bear the sight any longer. On the basis of the
available information at that time, the twentythree visitors
issued a Joint statement on 19 April, 1992, stating that -
"more than 400 houses were burnt to ashes and more than 200
children, women and elders were killed". Their report
enabled the civilized world to know about the Logang
massacre.
Because of the presence of the said visitors in the
area, the Government could not conceal the massacre
entirely. So it directed the military authorities to play
down the scale of the massacre and also to place the blame
at the door of the SB. Accordingly, Brig. Sharif Aziz issued
a statement on 11 April, 1992, saying that ten Jummas and
one Bangladeshi died in the Logang massacre. He also said
that "the killings had resulted from a Shanti Bahini attack
and the ensuing fight between the Shanti Bahini and local
Bengalis". Amnesty International reported in May, 1992, -
"Official statements about the incident refer to 13 dead and
14 missing. International news agencies reported defence
sources as saying that 12 tribal people were killed and 16
injured.... Major General Mahmudul Hasan, regional commander
in southeastern Bangladesh and in charge of the 24 Infantry
Division, said in an interview with Reuters news agency that
the gunbattle in Logang had been sparked by Shanti Bahini
activities and that 13 people had been killed and 34
injured".
The Anti-Slavery International, Survival International,
International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Organising
Committee Chittagong Hill Tracts Campaign and various human
rights groups have received reports that at least twelve
hundred Jummas were killed in the Logang massacre, Amnesty
International has also received information about several
hundred Jumma deaths in the same incident. All these human
rights groups believe that the Logang massacre was committed
by the Bangladesh security forces in league with the
Bangladeshi settlers and not by the SB in any way. They also
believe that the Government is hiding the massacre,
The Government has been making desperate attempts to
cover up the Logang massacre indeed. For example, when
Survival International asked the Bangladesh High Commission
in London to comment on the Logang massacre, the latter had
not only denied any killings but also the whole incident.
The Bangladesh Finance Minister, Mr. Saifur Rahman,
commenting on a demonstration, staged by a number of
European human rights organizations and a few Jumma human
rights groups, against the Logang mass-killings during the
Bangladesh Aid Consortium meeting in Paris on April 22,
1992, said - "the charges were totally untrue....similar
accusations of repression in the Chittagong Hill Tracts had
been made during the previous year's donor countries'
meeting .... It is a contrived situation to embarrass my
delegation here".
Under heavy international pressure, the Home Minister
of Bangladesh, Mr. Abdul Matin Chowdhury visited the Logang
cluster village on 25 April, 1992 (only after an interval of
more than two weeks!). While addressing a public gathering
at Pujgang High School ground (near the Logang cluster
village) he blamed the SB for the Logang massacre and
praised the military authorities for their role in the
incident instead of punishing them and the Bangladeshi
infiltrators. Similarly, international criticism forced the
Bangladesh Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Rahman to visit the
Logang village on 13 May, 1992 (only after an interval of
more than a month!). In a speech mainly delivered to Muslim
settlers gathered specifically for her visit, she also held
the SB responsible for the massacre in stead of taking
actions against the military and the Bangladeshi culprits.
Then Begum Khaleda Rahman warned that "the massacre would be
repeated if any Muslims lost their lives at the hands of the
indigenous CHT peoples". The statements of both the
Ministers clearly indicated that the massacre was carried
out under orders from the Government and that the Ministers
had entangled the SB in the incident just to conceal their
hands in the premeditated Logang massacre.
THE REPORT
Justice Khan's report is surprisingly brief and vague.
It does not mention how the investigation was conducted, how
the lines of enquiry were chosen, how the witnesses were
selected, in what environment the witnesses were
interviewed, what the witnesses were asked, what the
witnesses said, and all the important information about the
investigation. The report shows that the investigation was
incomplete and inadequate as the most vital lines of enquiry
had been omitted, the right witnesses had been by-passed and
the most valuable evidence had been neglected. It is full of
inconsistencies between the facts and the inferences. The
report also shows undue importance to the fabricated
evidence of the military, police and the other Government
officers. No wonder, it seems to be an elaboration of a
statement made by the CHT military authorities on the Logang
massacre on 11 April, 1992. The report also resembles the
military analysis of the CHT crisis as issued in a paper by
the military authorities in response to an independent
inquiry report published by the international Chittagong
Hill Tracts Commission (CHTC) in May, 1991. Perhaps, it is
worth-noting that the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry actually
wrote the paper in the name of the military authorities.
There is no mistaking that the report of Justice Khan is
totally oriented towards the military version of the Logang
massacre. Therefore, the Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh is
very likely to have also written this report in the name of
Justice Khan with a view to hiding the mass-killings at
Logang.
The gist of Justice Khan's report is that the SB
injured five Bangladeshi infiltrators with 'dao's, curved
knives, at Logang cluster village on 10 April, 1992. One of
the injured, Kabir Ahmed or Kabir Hossain died later due to
his throat injury and the rest were sent to Khagrachari
Hospital for treatment. Then, in reprisal for the killing of
one Bangladeshi and injuring another four, the Bangladesh
security personnel in league with the Bangladeshi
infiltrators attacked the Logang cluster village immediately
after the original incident occurred. As a consequence,
twelve Jummas were killed, thirteen Jummas were injured, two
Jummas were missing and five hundred and fifty Jumma houses
were burnt down.
INVESTIGATION ENVIRONMENT
The investigation into the Logang massacre was carried
out by Justice Khan and his Secretary, Mr. Mohammad Abdul
Matin Sirker, the Additional District Magistrate of the
Khagrachari District. The former is a zealous supporter of
the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the latter
is a senior civil servant. 30 their impartiality and
independence are doubtful. Moreover, both of them are
Muslim, Bangladeshi and non-Jumma. Therefore, they were not
reliable to and trusted by the Jumma people who feared
military reprisal if they spoke out the truth. Justice Khan
and his secretary talked to the Logang villagers in the
presence of the military, police and civil officers and the
Bangladeshi infiltrators. Naturally, the Jumma people did
not dare speak against the military authorities or the
Government or the Bangladeshi infiltrators. They took
evidence from the witnesses at the Khagrachari Circuit
House. The military authorities occupied the ground floor
and the enquiry commission sat on the upper floor, The
military authorities selected all the witnesses, thoroughly
briefed them and then sent them upstairs for their
interviews with the enquiry commission. In the case of the
Jumma witnesses, they were not interviewed on their own or
as a Jumma group. The military authorities always sent
Bangladeshis along with them for interviews to watch them so
that they could not disclose the actual facts. In fact, all
the Jumma witnesses had no opportunity to give evidence in
privacy. At the same time, the military authorities
prevented the Jumma students from giving evidence to the
enquiry commission and harassed them for seeking access to
Justice Khan. In short, the Jumma witnesses were coerced to
say what the military authorities needed to conceal the
massacre. The enquiry commission failed to create a sense of
confidence and security among the Jumma witnesses.
INCOMPLETE INVESTIGATION
Justice Khan did not thoroughly investigate the cause
of the massacre, the scale of the massacre and who were
really responsible for the massacre. Regarding the alleged
death of Kabir Hossain or Kabir Ahmed, he did not enquired
enough to find out the actual truth, Justice Khan himself
admitted that the SB did not attack the Logang cluster
village although almost all the military and Bangladeshi
witnesses claimed that the SB opened fire on the village
first and that the Jumma people died and their houses caught
fire in the cross-fire. Yet he believed the false evidence
of those military and Bangladeshi witnesses that the SB had
injured Kabir Ahmed or Kabir Hossain and his companions with
'dao's, broad curved knives, without verification. None of
those witnesses had seen the incident. They had also
admitted that they heard about the SB attack on Kabir Ahmed
or Kabir Hossain and his companions from the injured victims
themselves and that they believed what they were told by the
injured Bangladeshis although they had not verified the
matter. Still the military and Bangladeshi witnesses claimed
that the SB were well-equipped with fire-arms. The SB would
have certainly used fire-arms instead of using 'dao's had
they really attacked the Bangladeshis. Despite the
contradictory evidence of the military and Bangladeshi
witnesses, Justice Khan did not interview the injured
Bangladeshi infiltrators to verify the incident nor did he
examine the nature of their injuries to ascertain if the
injuries were caused by bullets or knives. The bullet-wounds
and the knife-injuries are quite different. H/s Rosaline
Costa (witness no. 70) of the CJP and her group of
Bangladeshi visitors went to the Khagrachari Hospital to
interview the injured Bangladeshis but the military
authorities denied them entrance to the hospital. However,
they were told that the number of injured Bangladeshis was
two and not four. The evidence about the name of the
deceased were discrepant. So were the evidence about the
number of injured victims. The military witnesses (witness
nos. 1-8, page 2) said that the deceased was Kabir Ahmed and
that his four companions were also injured. Whereas, the
Bangladeshi infiltrators (witness nos. 45, 32, 32, 24, 35,
52 and 53, page 8) said that the deceased was Kabir Hossain
and that two other Bangladeshi settlers were also injured.
Needless to say, the Jumma witnesses were interviewed under
duress and they were forced to support the military version
of the Logang massacre. Despite the fear of military
reprisal against them, two Jumma witnesses - 1) Hr. Mintu
Bikash Chakma (witness no. 62) and 2) Mr. Jagadish Chandra
Chakma (witness no. 64) - boldly pointed out that the
deceased was punished for an "attempted assault upon a
Chakma woman" by the Chairman of the local Union Council.
Justice Khan simply ignored their valuable evidence and did
not investigate what crime Kabir Hossain had committed and
what sort of punishment was awarded to him. Perhaps, it is
important to note that all the military and Bangladeshi
witnesses were neither eye-witnesses nor the inhabitants of
Logang cluster village. Still Justice Khan blindly relied on
their false and fabricated evidence. At the same time, he
did not enquire enough to establish the cause of injury to
Kabir Hossain nor did he wish to reveal the fact that Kabir
Hossain was actually injured while attempting to rape Jumma
women. Clearly, Justice Khan could not substantiate with
facts and figures the involvement of the SB in any way
either in the injuring of Kabir Hossain and his accomplices
or in the Logang massacre. It appears that he was bent on
accusing the SB of injuring Kabir Hossain and the other
rapists by hook or by crook with an ulterior motive of
concealing the Government-premeditated Logang massacre.
Justice Khan was not interested at all in determining
the scale of the Logang massacre. The Logang cluster village
is a concentration camp and the number of families and the
number of members of each family in the village have
officially been recorded. Ration cards have also been issued
to each family and the ration card register could give
information about the exact population in the village.
Moreover, the local voters register could also provide
information about the number of inhabitants of the village.
Justice Khan could easily find out the exact number of dead,
injured and missing Jummas by checking the ration card list,
voters list and the list of survivors who managed to flee to
the Tripura State of India. But he did not do so even after
being advised by M/s Rosaline Costa. Perhaps, it is worth-
mentioning that M/s Rosaline Costa and Mr. Kalpa Ranjan
Chakma, the Member of Parliament from the Khagrachari
District, were refused by the military authorities to see
the ration card list.
Justice Khan avoided the Jumma eye-witnesses and the
surviving Jumma villagers who could give him precise
information about the number of casualties of the massacre
if they were interviewed without the presence of military
personnel or Bangladeshi infiltrators. For example, Mr.
Samiran Dewan, the Chairman of the Khagrachari District
Council, counted one hundred and thirtyeight bodies in a
small part of the village alone on April 11, 1992.
Similarly, many survivors could supply Justice Khan with
precise information about the casualty figure. But he did
not care to know the extent of the massacre. Even Justice
Khan did not care to include in the missing list those Jumma
survivors who took shelter in the Indian State of Tripura
let alone to interview them to reveal the facts about the
massacre.
Justice Khan did not take notice of the very important
evidence of two Jumma survivors and eye-witnesses who boldly
told him about the number of dead bodies they had seen for
themselves. Mr. Chandra Sagor Chakma (witness no. 71) had
seen from a neighbouring house Jumma children being thrown
into the fire by the military and Bangladeshi invaders and
also one hundred fifty Jumma dead bodies being carried away
by the military personnel and the Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Another survivor, Mr. Boishishta Muni Chakma (page 9) saw
thirtynine dead bodies lying around his burnt house
including the body of his wife when he came back to his
Logang cluster village on 11 April, 1992, to claim his
wife's body for cremation. But the military authorities
refused to give him his wife's body indicating that they had
disposed of all the dead bodies at secret places. Justice
Khan simply ignored the report of Mr. Boishishta Muni Chakma
and dismissed the very important evidence of Mr. Chandra
Sagor Chakma by making a comment (page 18) - "But strangely
when the Regional Commander, Brigadier Sharif Aziz came to
the place of occurrence on the next day (11 April, 1992) he
wanted the dead bodies of 11 Chakma tribals for private
cremation. He did not tell the Brigadier about the death of
150 persons". His comment confirmed again that he was
reluctant to take note of the true evidence in order to
suppress the vital information on the very large extent of
the massacre. Hr. Chandra Sagor Chakma told Justice Khan the
truth because he was supposed to be neutral and impartial as
the Chairman of the enquiry commission. Mr. Chandra Sagor
Chakma did not tell Brigadier the facts as he feared
military vengeance. Moreover, he knew very well that Brig.
Sharif Aziz and the other local military commanders master-
minded the Logang massacre. Perhaps, it is note-worthy that
Brig. Sharif Aziz admitted to M/s Rosaline Costa and her
party of Bangladeshi visitors that one hundred thirtyeight
Jummas were killed in the massacre. Then he denied having
said that to Justice Khan. Despite his false and
inconsistent evidence, Justice Khan heavily relied on his
evidence and did not pay heed to the true accounts of the
survivors and eye-witnesses. It is unbecoming for an
investigator to rely on the statements of the military,
police and the other Government officers without any proofs
specifically when he was investigating a huge massacre
allegedly committed by the Government agencies in league
with their co-religionists.
Instead of becoming independent, impartial and just,
Justice Khan openly took the side of the Government and the
Government agencies by declaring three Government officers -
1) Ashok Kumar Biswas, Assistant Sub-Inspector of police of
Panchari police station, witness no. 89; 2) a civilian
officer (U.N.O) of Panchari area, witness no. 91; and 3)
Zahurul Islam, medical officer of Panchari area, witness no.
99 - as "witnesses of truth" in his report. None of them are
from the Logang cluster village, none of them had seen
either the incident in which Kabir Hossain was injured or
the Logang massacre at the time of occurrence, and none of
them had investigated the Kabir Hossain incident or the
entire Logang massacre. On the other hand, they had to toe
the Government line which is a must for all Government
personnel in the CHT under the military rule. Therefore,
Justice Khan's assumption was not only wrong but his
investigation procedure was also seriously defective. In
fact, he deliberately suppressed information about the
massacre by recognising the concocted evidence of the
various Government officers as true and factual. The real
witnesses of truth are M/s Rosaline Costa and her group of
Bangladeshi visitors and also the Jumma survivors and eye-
witnesses. To everybody's surprise, Justice Khan refused to
accept them as the witnesses of truth and spurned their
priceless suggestions and true evidence, In stead of
pursuing their wisely suggested lines of inquiry about the
number of dead, injured and missing Jummas, he obsequiously
approved of the views and certificates of the military,
police and civilian officers and endorsed without questions
even the affidavits and statements that the Chairmen and
Members of the Local Union Councils had to issue under the
orders of the local military commanders. Doubtless, Justice
Khan had stage-managed the whole enquiry exercise in
connivance with the Government and the military authorities.
FLAWED CONCLUSIONS
Evidently, Justice Khan's inferences were unusually
flawed partly because he did not investigate the matter
adequately and partly because he deliberately suppressed
most of the valuable information relating to the Logang
massacre. He could not substantiate his inference - that the
SB had injured Kabir Hossain and the other Bangladeshi
rapists with local 'dao's (broad curved knives) - with
concrete facts. All the military and Bangladeshi witnesses
were not from the Logang cluster village and they had not
seen the incident for themselves. They simply heard of the
incident from the injured Bangladeshi rapists. The Jumma
witnesses were coerced to confirm the military version of
the story. Even the military and Bangladeshi witnesses were
not sure who was the deceased and how many Bangladeshi
rapists were injured in the incident. The military witnesses
claimed - the deceased was Kabir Ahmed and four other
rapists were also injured. At the same time, the Bangladeshi
infiltrators claimed - the deceased was Kabir Hossain and
two other rapists were also injured. M/s Rosaline Costa and
her party of Bangladeshi visitors were told at the
Khagrachari Hospital that the number of injured Bangladeshi
rapists were two and not four. Justice Khan neither
interviewed the injured Bangladeshi rapists nor examined the
nature of their injuries whether caused by bullets or curved
knives. The military authorities also disallowed H/s
Rosaline Costa and her companions to interview the two
injured Bangladeshi rapists in the hospital. All the
military and Bangladeshi witnesses said that the SB were
well-armed with firearms. Yet they claimed that the SB
injured Kabir Hossain and his accomplices with curved
knives. Later it was proved that none of the military and
Bangladeshi witnesses had seen the SB attacking either Kabir
Hossain and his accomplices or the Logang cluster village
for themselves. Justice Khan had also not investigated the
evidence of two Jumma witnesses that Kabir Hossain was
punished by a local Chairman for attempting to rape a Jumma
woman. Possibly, he did not interview the injured
Bangladeshi rapists and the military authorities did not
allow M/s Rosaline Costa and her group to interview the
injured Bangladeshi rapists because the attack by the SB on
Kabir Hossain and his accomplices was a fabricated incident.
Justice Khan had also admitted that the SB had not attacked
the Logang cluster village. Obviously, the evidence
collected by him are inadequate, conflicting and concocted.
His attempt to suppress the actual facts is crystal-clear.
Therefore, Justice Khan's conclusion that the SB had injured
Kabir Hossain was not only untrue but also one hundred
percent fabricated. Had he been impartial and honest, then
he could easily find out that Kabir Hossain was injured when
he and another Bangladeshi infiltrator were trying to rape
Jumma women under the orders of the local military
commanders.
Justice Khan concluded that twelve Jummas were killed,
thirteen Jummas were injured, two Jummas were missing and
five hundred and fifty Jumma houses were burnt down as a
result of the Logang massacre. These figures fully tally
with the casualty figures given by Brigadier Sharif Aziz
(witness no. 65) and Lt. Col. Matin (witness no. 66), Zonal
military Commander of the Panchari Zone, Justice Khan also
confirmed that the military personnel and the Bangladeshi
infiltrators combinedly attacked the Logang cluster village
immediately after Kabir Hossain was injured indicating that
many old people, women and children could not find enough
time to flee the onslaught. According to the accounts of the
villagers, eye-witnesses and the local authorities, the
invaders hacked many Jummas, opened fire on the fleeing
Jummas, set some eight hundred Jumma houses on fire after
locking the old people, women and children into their
houses, cordoned off the entire village, put the dead and
injured Jummas together on military trucks, drove them to
secret places and burned them together.
Justice Khan underestimated the number of houses burnt
down. Assuming at least two old people, women and children
died in every house-hold, then the number of dead Jummas
should not be less than sixteen hundred excluding those who
were hacked to death and shot dead. Among the survivors and
eye-witnesses, 2 bold Jummas, Mr. Boishishta Muni Chakma and
Hr. Chandra Sagor Chakma pointed out to Justice Khan that
they saw thirtynine and one hundred fifty dead bodies
respectively. Mr. Samiran Dewan counted one hundred and
thirtyeight dead bodies in a small area of the village alone
on 11 April, 1992. Even Brig. Sharif Aziz told M/s Rosaline
Costa & her group of Bangladeshi visitors that Mr. Samiran
Dewan's statement about the dead bodies he had seen was
true. The exact number of dead and injured Jummas could be
easily found by checking the ration card list, the voters
list and the list of Jumma survivors who took refuge in the
Tripura State of India. Justice Khan did not do that despite
he was advised by M/s Rosaline Costa. The military
authorities also did not allow M/s Rosaline Costa and her
group of Bangladeshi visitors and also the HP from the
Khagrachari District, Mr. Kalpa Ranjan Chakma, to see the
ration card list. It may be recalled that the military
commanders did not permit M/s Rosaline Costa and her group
of Bangladeshi journalists, lawyers, human rights activists,
parliamentarians and professors to visit the Logang cluster
village even on 11 and 12 April, 9 1992. Brig. Sharif Aziz
himself prevented Mr. Samiran Dewan from inspecting the site
of massacre on the day of occurrence. These evidence prove
absolutely that Justice Khan did not tell the truth about
the number of deaths. In reality, he tried to hide the
number of deaths in support of the military version of the
Logang massacre.
Normally, in a shoot-out on a fleeing crowd, more
people are injured than killed. Like the military
authorities, Justice Khan claimed that only twelve Jummas
were killed and another thirteen injured. But the Defence
sources of Bangladesh told the international news agencies
that twelve Jumma people were killed and sixteen were
injured. At the same time, MaJ. Gen. Mahmudul Hasan, the
General Officer Commanding of the Chittagong Division of the
Bangladesh Army and the real ruler of the CHT, told the
Reuters news agency that twelve Jummas were killed and
thirtyfour injured. The very contradictory statements of
various military officers show that Justice Khan's report on
the number of injured Jummas was wrong and designed to back
up the false information given by the local military
commanders. There is no doubt that hundreds of Jummas were
injured and that most of them were burned alive along with
the dead secretly.
In keeping with the military authorities' statement on
the number of missing Jummas, Justice Khan reported that
only two Jummas were missing. M/s Rosaline Costa pointed out
to him that many survivors had fled to the Tripura State of
India. Still Justice Khan stuck to the number of missing
Jumma people claimed by the military authorities.
Apparently, he did not tell the truth. At the same time,
Justice Khan had not only helped the military authorities
conceal the extent of the most horrible massacre of recent
years but he had also attempted to mislead the world.
Justice Khan had affirmed that the SB had not attacked
the Logang cluster village. He could not corroborate the
attack on Kabir Hossain by the SB either despite his
dexterous manipulation of the entire inquiry process.
Therefore, his inference that the SB had provoked the
military and the Bangladeshi infiltrators to attack the
Logang cluster village by injuring Kabir Hossain was
baseless and out of the question. Now, the question arises
why the military authorities and Justice Khan attempted to
implicate the SB in the injuring of Kabir Hossain. The
answer is simple. They wanted to cover up the fact that
Kabir Hossain was actually injured while attempting to rape
Jumma women. Their strategy was that if they could prove the
injuring of Kabir Hossain by the SB, then they would be able
to Justify their attack on the Logang cluster village on the
pretext of flushing out the SB from the area. The military
personnel and the Bangladeshi settlers jointly carried out
many massacres of the innocent Jumma villagers in the CHT on
such lame excuses. Surely, they have massacred the
inhabitants of the Logang cluster village with a view to
settling their co-religionists in the area as part of the
Government's ethnic cleansing campaign in the CHT.
Naturally, one may ask the question why the Government
did not deny having committed the whole incident if it was
able to get away with all the previous massacres. The
Government could not do it because at the time of the
incident M/s Rosaline Costa and her team advented in the
area like a God-send. These compassionate visitors had
spared no efforts to unearth the massacre. Immediately, they
alerted the civilised world about the horrible mass-killings
at Logang. In the face of world-wide protests, the
Government realised that the complete denial of the massacre
would have roused greater international indignation against
it and so it admitted the massacre but on a very small scale
which amounted to a massive cover-up of such a big massacre.
Then it appointed Justice Khan, a zealous supporter of the
ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, to minimise the scale
of the massacre as far as possible. As expected, Justice
Khan toed the Government line by suppressing the crucial
information and fabricating the evidence to the highest
degree. He followed the Government guideline so much so that
he endorsed exactly the casualty figure given by the
military authorities. Even he dismissed the allegation of
twelve hundred deaths in the massacre by putting up a
ridiculous argument - "It is impossible to dispose of such a
large number of dead bodies and/or to remove them and/or to
hide them in any place because such a large number of dead
bodies can not be removed except by vehicles and they are to
be disposed of near the road and that any such disposal of
dead bodies cannot be concealed" (page 19). It was naive of
Justice Khan not to know that the military authorities have
many vehicles and that there are thousands of military
personnel and Bangladeshi settlers in the area. Certainly,
it is not difficult at all for the military authorities to
remove and dispose of twelve hundred or so dead bodies by
using their vehicles and the available man-power. According
to the accounts of the survivors and eye-witnesses, the
military personnel and the Bangladeshi infiltrators
combinedly put the dead and injured Jummas together on
military trucks, drove them to secret places and then burned
them. Tens of thousands of Jummas were massacred and then
secretly disposed of easily by the military authorities.
Therefore, Justice Khan's peculiar argument has no legs to
stand on. The fact is that he tried to conceal the actual
casualty figure in collusion with the Government.
Justice Khan had not investigated thoroughly to find
out the real culprits of the Logang massacre. At the same
time, he manipulated the evidence in such a way so that some
insignificant persons bear the blame that should fall on the
actual criminals behind the massacre at Logang. Justice Khan
singled out Habilder Nurul Iman (witness no. 57) and Subedar
Habibur Rahman (witness no. 55) among the many other low-
ranking military personnel as responsible for the Logang
tragedy. It is a common knowledge in Bangladesh that the
Government gives instructions to the military authorities
about its plans and programmes in the CHT and then the
latter translate those instructions into actions. The
Bangladeshi settlers confessed again and again in public
meetings that they do not attack the Jumma people without
the orders of the local military commanders. Being low-
ranking military personnel, Habilder Nurul Iman and Subedar
Habibur Rahman have no decision making power. They must have
acted under the orders of the military officers at Panchari
who must have taken orders from Brig. Sharif Aziz and also
from the GOC, Chittagong Division of the Bangladesh Army,
Maj. Gen. Mahmudul Hasan. Certainly, those military officers
starting from Maj. Gen. Mahmudul Hasan, Brig. Sharif Aziz to
the local military commanders of the Panchari area would
never have organised such a huge massacre without the prior
approval of the Bangladesh Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda
Rahman. It is, perhaps, important to note that she
repeatedly declared her intention to follow the policy of
the former disgraced military dictator of Bangla Desh, Gen.
Hossain Mohammad Ershad, in the CHT. In fact, Begum Khaleda
Rahman frankly confessed her hand in the massacre when she
warned the CHT people in public meetings at Logang and
Dighinala that - "the massacre would be repeated if any
Muslims lost their lives at the hands of the indigenous CHT
people". Clearly, Justice Khan found the easy scapegoats
like Habilder Nurul Iman, Subedar Habibur Rahman and the
other low-ranking military personnel for the sins of Begum
Khaleda Rahman and her military lieutenants in order to
exonerate the Government and the other military accomplices
from master-minding the Logang massacre. He turned his blind
eye towards Begum Khaleda Rahman and the military commanders
in the CHT and could not see the real culprits behind the
Logang massacre. Although Justice Khan has recommended the
trial and punishment of those scapegoats, the Government
would never try and punish them. However, they would be
taken into custody, tried and punished on papers only.
Highly commending the role of the military forces in
the Logang mass-murders, Justice Khan had remarked - "I may
also put on record that the level of casualty in the Hill
Tracts at the hands of the Army in counter insurgency
operation is very low compared to the situation in some
parts of the sub-continent or elsewhere in the world. Not a
single case of extra-judicial execution as done elsewhere in
some countries in the name of integrity of the country or
suppression of terrorism, or extra-legal detention, has been
brought to the notice of the commission" (page 23). His
remark is contradictory to his knowledge of the military-
premeditated Logang mass-killings. The world knows that the
Bangladesh military forces have detained, tortured and
killed thousands of Jummas without charge or trial in any
courts of law. Justice Khan's comment is surely a blatant
travesty of the truth. The independent inquiry report of the
international CHTC belies his remark.
Justice Khan found the SB not involved in the attack of
the Logang cluster village on the basis of the false and
fabricated evidence given by the military and the
Bangladeshi witnesses. He could not also corroborate his
inference that the SB had injured Kabir Hossain and the
other Bangladeshi rapists even with the untrue and concocted
statements of those unreliable military and Bangladeshi
witnesses. On the other hand, Justice Khan did not try to
find out the real causes of the Logang massacre and who were
responsible for it. Therefore, his conclusion that the SB
had sparked 05 the Logang massacre was baseless, far from
the reality and motivated to obscure the actual culprits
behind the massacre and the ethnic cleansing policy of the
Government. The SB was not involved in the incident any
manner. Doubtless, Justice Khan had attempted to conceal the
military-premeditated Logang massacre and his entire
investigation process was fundamentally flawed and fully
stage-managed.
BIASED RECOMMENDATIONS
To prevent further incidents like that of Logang in the
CHT, Justice Khan had recommended the further arming of the
Bangladeshi infiltrators (page 24) by stating - "they must
raise their own security force namely village defence party
who should be given arms and training for protection of the
village....". He had recognised the bitter relationship
between the Jumma people and the Bangladeshi settlers.
Justice Khan had also admitted that it was the armed
Bangladeshi infiltrators who attacked the unarmed Jummas of
the Logang cluster village. Still he advocated the arming of
the extremely hostile Bangladeshi settlers. Evidently, his
unjust and biased recommendation will increase Bangladeshi
violence in the CHT on an unprecedented scale. In fact,
Justice Khan had encouraged very unjudiciously the
Government and the Bangladeshi infiltrators to commit more
massacres of the unarmed Jumma people. Over and above, his
violent recommendation contradicted his finding.
Justice Khan recommended also the immediate settlement
of tens of thousands of Bangladeshi infiltrators brought
into the CHT under the Government-financed Bangladeshization
of the CHT scheme. The scheme violates the CHT Regulation of
1900 which protects the political, economic, social,
cultural and religious rights of the Jumma people. It also
violates the existing Bangladeshi laws which forbid the
Bangladeshi settlers to occupy forcibly the Jumma villages
and agricultural lands. Such a serious disregard for human
rights in the CHT and such a flagrant disrespect for
Bangladeshi laws prove once again that Justice Khan is
extremely partial to his co-religionists and terribly
hostile to the people of the CHT.
Justice Khan himself has noted that there is tension
between the Jumma people and the Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Nobody denies that the tension is due to the illegal and
forcible occupation of Jumma villages and farmlands by the
Bangladeshi illegal settlers. The primary task of the
military forces is to depopulate the Jumma villages by
employing all kinds of ethnic-cleansing tactics and then to
resettle the depopulated areas with their co-religionists
from the plains of Bangladesh. The Logang massacre was, in
fact, carried out to seize the area for a few thousand
Bangladeshi settlers. Yet Justice Khan tried to involve the
SB in the Logang incident just to disguise the Government's
sinister policy what the military leaders frankly and openly
declared - "We want only the land and not the People of the
CHT". He was fully aware of the Bangladeshi invasion of the
CHT. Still Justice Khan claimed that the insurgence is the
main cause of the crisis in the CHT. He could not see the
forest for the trees. The JSS and the SB came into being to
defend the Jumma people, their traditional homeland and
their political, economic, social, cultural and religious
rights from the Bangladeshi onslaught. Justice Khan's biased
recommendation is bound to cause manifold increase in the
Bangladeshi violence against the helpless Jumma men, women
and children. In fact, he has recommended the extermination
of the Jumma Nation by recommending the settlement of the
Bangladeshi infiltrators in the CHT.
CONCLUSION
Justice Khan's report is fundamentally flawed. His
impartiality and independence are questionable as he has
clearly sided with the Government and the military
authorities. The truth of his finding is also equally
doubtful because he has suppressed information, distorted
facts and concocted evidence. In a nut-shell, Justice Khan
has aided the Government and the military authorities to
cover up the Logang massacre. He has displayed extreme
partiality towards his Bangladeshi co-religionists on the
one hand and demonstrated century-old hostility to the Jumma
people while making recommendations for preventing further
violence in the CHT on the other. Justice Khan's report is
so full of inconsistencies, inadequacies, omissions,
fabricated evidence and biased conclusions that it does not
look like an inquiry report written by an experienced judge.
Possibly it was written by the military authorities in the
name of Justice Khan. Whoever might have written it, it is
not true, credible and worthy of being called an impartial
report. Therefore, the international community is fervently
requested to send an independent international commission to
Logang to investigate the said massacre. The Jumma people
would co-operate fully with such a commission and disclose
all the truth about the massacre to it without any fear.
21.3.1993 (written by Ramendu Shekhar Dewan)
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